Natasha Lvovich

What was your favorite book as a child?

The first book I remember obsessing about was called Papa, Mama, Eight Children, and a Truck, written by a Norwegian writer Anna Catharina Vestly. Curiously, I did not only read it — but I wrote and illustrated it, since it was MY book, my own story of Papa, Mama, and their eight children. I did not think of it as plagiarism. The family described in this popular in Soviet Russia Norwegian children’s book lived, like us, in one-room apartment: the children slept on mattresses (which were piled up in a corner in the morning) and the parents slept in the kitchen. When their grandmother came for a visit, she slept on the kitchen table. Papa adored his truck, just like my Papa adored his Moskvich. They were a happy loving unmaterialistic family, the dream of every child.

Then a bit later, already in school, I was swept off my feet by Jules Verne and by Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musqueteers): oh the swords, and the hats, the hats… Then I was fixated on Antoine de Saint Exupery’s Le Petit Prince that I read in French…

What was the original reason or motivation why you started writing creatively?

After I wrote my first book Papa, Mama, Eight Chidren, and a Truck (a graphic novel), I kept writing and drawing in every possible genre, for example epistolary, creating self-made cards to family, which usually rhymed like this: Mama dorogaya, milaya rodnaya (my Mother dear, sweet and cherished) with ample illustrations (Dedushka, please forgive me for drawing cats on your New Year card: everybody in our class draws cats…). Later I wrote lampoons and “comics,” for example I wrote short vignettes as comical illustrations to the Criminal Code of the USSR (both my parents were attorneys). Later, it got more serious and I wrote (mostly romantic) poetry in Russian and French, and I studied versification. I’ve been writing ever since: in Russian, French, and English, in different genres and canons.

What was the most adventurous or thrilling thing you ever did/experienced?

Exciting adventures: my school French theater, which staged Anatole France’s Abeille (Honey-Bee), where I played the wicked Queen of Mermaids. Speaking French was always an adventure because I had to pass for a French person: I felt I was in a movie.  And finally the adventure of all adventures was leaving Russia and becoming American.

Do you listen to music while reading or writing? Why/why not?

I never listen to music while writing or reading — only during physical activities, like cleaning, washing, or cooking. I need total concentration and complete silence to think, read, and write.